Benchtop final touches

[Anthony Whitesell]

I am putting the final touches on my bench top. I have the dog hole issue all taken care of. I have cut the mortise to recess the stationary vise jaw. The last thing to do is to apply the edging. I'm applying ~3/4" thick strip of hard maple to the front edge to give it some durability (I think hard maple will hold up slightly better than 2x spruce/fir). When I glued the edging on it did not dry 90 degree to the top. I think it would be important from the front edge and the top to be 90 degrees to each other so I could use either/both of the a reference surfaces. My question is what options/ideas are lurking out there to bring the two faces back to 90 degrees? I've stared at the jointer quite a bit. But I can't see how I can hold, lift, slide, guide, and keep the top against the fence at all once. So I'm open to suggestions.

P.S. The top is 28" x 60" x 3" thick. It really is surpirising how heavy and bulky it is.

[doug faist]

Anthony - Just an off the wall comment. I've had my bench for about 5 years now and not once in that time have I had occasion to use the edge as a reference. I know it would be nice to have the whole thing perfectly square and parallel, but I'm curious when you might need it. Can you give us an example?

Doug

[Leigh Betsch]

how about a router and a straight edge, use the side of the bit.

[Anthony Whitesell]

If you clamp a board to the front edge of the table and want to use the table as the flat surface that 90 degrees to the edge for things like cutting mortises, edge routing, or flushing trimming. Basically any time you would want to have additional backside support for the router, handplane, or sanding.